CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A December 15 road game at Syracuse, a site
change for the Thanksgiving week CBE Classic and a shakeup of dates for
four home games are among the changes in the final 2008-09 Viking men's
basketball schedule, which was released on Monday.

In recent weeks, the Rise &
Fall series has chronicled the progress (or regress) of college basketball's
major conference teams. But if I equated each team to a civilization, I was
mistaken. It is really the NCAA conference that equates to a burgeoning
civilization or nation, each with its sometimes stable and sometimes rotating
member states. Like civilizations, the prestige and power of conferences wax and
wane..